Monday, January 30, 2012

I received a fascinating and welcome phone call this morning from Gordon Hay, Executive Director and Founder of Venture Academy.

Gordon wanted to learn more about DPNC. We had a marvelous conversation and discovered that we are very much on the same page regarding abstinence based prevention and treatment.

I confess that I was not familiar at all with Venture Academy - a very complex and thorough program for troubled teens, operating in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario - but I have now spent some time reading their website, and I encourage you to do so as well.

This looks like another first-rate resource. The facility in British Columbia operates in Kelowna.

Gordon Hay has assured us that Venture will join the DPNC membership and perhaps we can look forward to seeing him and colleague or two at our next get-together in the spring.

If you'd like to welcome Gordon and Venture into our common cause, you can say "Hello" to directly at ghay@vetureacademy.ca

Monday, January 23, 2012

The Nanaimo Addiction Foundation and Nanaimo Region John Howard Society would like to invite professionals supporting the needs of individuals struggling with addiction and/or mental health issues to attend the Symposium.

What is a Therapeutic Community?

“A therapeutic community is a drug-free environment in which people with addictive (and other) problems live together in an organized and structured way in order to promote change and make possible a drug-free life in the outside society. The therapeutic community forms a miniature society in which residents, and staff in the role of facilitators, fulfil distinctive roles and adhere to clear rules, all designed to promote the transitional process of the residents.”(Ottenberg 1993 in Broekaert: 2001:29).

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The following was sent to me by a friend who knows the DTES better than most.. This is just about one of the best pieces on the subject I`ve ever read.

Think back about 10 years when Vancouver's injection drug users all got together and created a lobby group - VANDU ….and people thought they were nuts. They lobbied for drug users rights and eventually they got it from the local politicians. Guys like quiet uneventful Philp Owen woke up and thought they could be viewed as a visionary if they got on board. The druggies were able to convince the locals that instead of being called DRUG ABUSERS they should be called DRUG USERS and eventually their lifestyle was accepted and they were called THE DRUG COMMMUNITY. All the while without having any desire to kick the habit, pay their share of the taxes, and contribute to society like the rest of us. They were able to convince some of the locals that DRUG INTERVENTION and DRUG ABSTINENCE were mean, nasty, and unrealistic goals. They could now continue to live off the rest of society without any guilt.

And many left leaning people got good paying jobs in Vancouver to service the drug community's every need. Millions and millions of tax dollars poured into the area without anyone monitoring the results. Politicians pretended to base their entire political direction on helping the poor addicted people but never really did anything significant to change the situation. That way their political careers flourished. (Libby Davies, Jenny Kwan, Jim Green, Mayor Larry Campbell, Philip Owen, etc.etc.)

As long as there were plenty of drug addicts kept around they could all keep their jobs. So any time there is a hint of changing the status quo they all get back together and get up in arms.

The majority of the public cannot relate to someone who is addicted to drugs such as heroin, pot, and cocaine because they don't have addicted family members or friends on the stuff. They don't understand that a heroin or cocaine addiction which is an illegal substance is similar to a tobacco, prescription drug or alcohol addiction which is a legal substance. After all they are all similar drugs with similar effects. Some are injected. Some are smoked. Some are inhaled. And some are consumed. In order to kick the habit, on ANY OF THESE DRUGS, one does not have to be strapped down to a hospital bed for days on end monitored by medical staff like an Intensive Care Unit.

Drug treatment centres aren't fancy hospitals built like prisons watching the patients every move 24/7. Instead most drug treatment facilties are simply supportive housing where patients are free to come and go and where abstinence is preached along with group counselling. Nothing fancy. Nothing highly technical that requires a lengthy hospital visit. People can kick drug addictions in their own home.

The public can't really relate to a person addicted to illegal drugs but they can relate to someone with a tobacco, prescription drugs, or alcohol addiction because they are more likely to have family members or friends with these problems. They may even have this problem themselves.

Getting back to the story of the Free booze lounge in the skids…. Vancouver Alcoholics, with help from the poverty pimps, are trying to do what the drug users did a decade ago. They are organizing themselves and are demanding a steady stream of free booze everyday of the week. This is another new industry where many jobs could be created.

This time they are not getting the same look from the public. Many of us personally know people that have a problem with alcohol. We think that it is ridiculous to think that we would reward people like Uncle Harold and Cousin Fred with free booze when we know they are just lazy slobs that want to party all night and sleep all day.

If we do give free booze to these people what is going to guarentee they are not going to continue to supplement their drinking with the mouthwash, shaving cream etc. at night?

Also if we start feeding people free booze is the public legally responsible once they leave the facilty and begin to cross the street while intoxicated. What if they leave the facililty go lie down in the alley and freeze to death? Are we now going to have to hire personal escorts or chauffeurs to make sure they return to their one room apartment?

Instead of Community GARDENS Vancouver could have Community U-BREW sites all over the city to feed the alcoholics.

Of this keeps up… instead of having to go to work everyday to pay the taxes… some of us could spend the time fermenting alcohol and growing pot for their own personal consumption while living off the public teet.

As it is right now each year our TAX FREEDOM DATE is in June or July. That means that half of all the money we make goes to paying taxes so that the rest of society can live.

Let's get realistic….We all can't sit around and wait for the welfare cheque to roll in each month.

What is the difference between this frightening absurdity and the satirical letter to the editor on safe guns below?

Group touts Insite-style lounge for 'illicit' drinkers

Plan includes free alcohol for the addicted

By Cheryl Rossi, Vancouver CourierJanuary 4, 2012

Some addicts in the Downtown Eastside drink hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol.

Photograph by: Jason Lang, Vancouver Courier

Those who imbibe Listerine, hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol want a peer-run illicit alcohol drinker's lounge established in the Downtown Eastside.

"It's like an Insite [supervised injection site] for illicit drinkers," said Nicole Latham, community developer with the Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education, or E.I.D.G.E., that was formed in late July through the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, or VANDU.

The more than 20 members of E.I.D.G.E. envision a program that would provide free legal alcohol to those addicted to using substances with low prices and high alcohol content that aren't meant to be ingested. They want the lounge to be peer-run and to provide referrals to other health services.

Alcohol maintenance programs have run in other jurisdictions for years. A medical student and PhD candidate from the University of B.C. is working with the E.I.D.G.E. group that meets once a week except following welfare Wednesday when few participants show up after receiving their monthly cheque.

Vancouver Coastal Health is running a pilot alcohol maintenance program for illicit alcohol drinkers that started in August. The Managed Alcohol Program operates at PHS Community Services' subsidized housing on Station Street.

Eight of 80 residents who are chronic drinkers that have relapsed after detox are given vodka, beer or wine every hour for 12 hours. They also received counselling.

MAP aims to reduce emergency room visits, encounters with police and the number of drinks each participant consumes.

Mark Townsend of PHS says the program costs roughly $350 per person per month.

"What that means if they're not going to the hospital once, we've saved the money instantaneously," he said.

Dr. Ronald Joe, medical manager of Inner City Addictions for Vancouver Coastal Health, said the program's most troubled client visited the emergency room every three days.

Some favour rubbing alcohol because it provides the highest alcohol content for the buck. Joe said clients can buy a 250 ml bottle of 95 per cent rubbing alcohol for $3, dilute and drink it for an equivalent of 30 standard drinks, say 30 beer or 30 servings of wine.

"Our worst clients are drinking two or three or four of these [bottles] a day, so we're talking about 120 drinks a day," he said.

PHS has operated alcohol maintenance programs in the past, but this is the first time a program has been run in a more scientific way that's based on clinical evidence with Vancouver Coastal Health and researchers from the University of Victoria.

Joe says participants appear, on average, to have reduced the number of drinks they consume by half and they've shifted from illicit to beverage alcohol. Their health seems to be improving and they are causing fewer disturbances for other residents at Station Street.

"The public- wants a quick fix," Joe said. "-We need to think of it in a completely different paradigm. It's a chronic disease, it's a relapsing condition and we need to better help people recover where they're at."

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Kudos to whoever came up with the recent plan to distribute safe crack pipes to the needy. But it got me to thinking - couldn't we as a society be doing even more to help?

Not the drug users. I'm talking about the deplorable and hazardous state of many of the handguns used by some of our most desperate citizens when they feel it's necessary to shoot someone.

Cheaply made and improperly maintained handguns can back-fire and explode, seriously injuring or even killing their victim (I mean the shooter here, not the tar-get of the gun).

I suggest we initiate a government program to replace dangerous pistols with well-made and properly maintained Canadian-made guns. After all, these people are going to shoot anyway, regardless of our personal disapproval of the activity and their choice of lifestyle.

Each government-issued pistol would be hermetically sealed and come with a warning label, as well as a pamphlet encouraging alter-natives to gun violence like yoga or vegetarianism.

Below, you will find a full-length movie about Oxycontin and the people who market and sell it.

Let us be clear: WE DO NOT ENTIRELY ENDORSE EVERYTHING THE FILM MAKERS HAVE TO SAY. This is their opinion.

But we share it with you because "Oxy" has gone viral - it is a runaway epidemic on our streets today, and we would like very much to see some of the folks who are responsible for getting this scourge into our communities accept their role and perhaps even do something to minimize the deadly impacts of their product.

Endorsement

"All treatment centres in B.C. should get involved and support the Drug Prevention Network. As one collective voice we need to send the message that treatment works and it saves lives. There are recovery houses, treatment centers, private, government funded, long term, short term, detox, therapeutic communities etc. Let's help support prevention and help educate the public."